Even Fuller Houses: Board of Ed and the Supremes

by Geoff Kelly

The only races attracting more candidates than the 60th District State Senate are the race for three at-large seats on Buffalo’s Board of Education, with 12 candidates so far (including one celebrated local beatboxer), and the race for five seats on the New York State Supreme Court, where there may be three times that many. (At last count Democratic party gadfly Dan Ward had assembled 37 names, but who’s counting? Many of those candidacies are just rumors; others will fizzle.)

The aspirant Supremes are generally winnowed by collaboration of the chairs of the county Democratic and Republican parties, who agree to cross-endorse favored candidates, in effect guaranteeing their election. This year that’s not happening: We’re told that GOP chairman Nick Langworthy turned down Democratic chairman Jeremy Zellner’s offer to cross-endorse. (We’ve heard Zellner offered to endorse two Republicans in exchange for Langworthy endorsing three Democrats; Langworthy’s number was four Republicans for one Democrat, a number so absurd in a county with a Democratic enrollment advantage that it seems calculated to curtail any bargaining.) Langworthy is gambling that Democrats are so balkanized and Zellner’s control of the party so weak that a crowded field of Democrats will split the party’s voters and allow the more disciplined and united Republicans to sneak some candidates across the finish line.

If that happens, it’s bad news for Zellner, just as it was bad news for former party chairman Steve Pigeon more than a dozen years ago when he lost control of some judicial races.

For the record, these are the names of Supreme contenders, as assembled by Ward, with his noted (and a few of our own in parentheses):

• James F. Bargnesi, Erie County Assistant District Attorney. (Maybe, but would he run against his boss, DA Frank A. Sedita III, also on this list?)

• Hon. Frank A. Sedita III, Democrat, Erie County District Attorney. (Count on this: Remember, he shook down his staff for campaign donations early last year, right after winning re-election as DA. That money is for this race.)

• Michael Siragusa, Democrat, Erie County Attorney.

• Hon. Donna Siwek, Republican, incumbent Supreme Court Justice.

• Mary L. Slisz, Republican, Buffalo attorney.

• Kathleen M. Sweet, former president of Erie County Bar Association, Buffalo attorney.